For a while, I have been thinking a lot about what we are as human beings. To what we are worth as a species. I hear the bombardments in Ukraine, the cry of women in Iran, I watch the glaciers melt. Tomorrow it will be too hot.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
I also dive back into the story. She’s not always pretty. To conquer men and territories, to dominate species, to be master of the world, we have lowered ourselves to very dark things. Because we are the best.
When I was in CEGEP, in my first philosophy class, the teacher asked a question: what differentiates humans from animals? Many answered intelligence. “No,” replied the teacher, adding, “chimpanzees also have some form of intelligence.” Other students said it was our empathy, our compassion. I rolled my eyes. The teacher said, “Think of mothers protecting their little ones. And then there’s this dolphin study. Empathy exists in several species. »
The correct answer was reason.
There is also this story, attributed, rightly or wrongly, to the anthropologist Margaret Mead. A student allegedly asked her what she thought were the first signs of civilization. Mme Mead would then have replied that it was a femur, a broken femur that had been healed. The anthropologist would have explained that at one point in history, a human helped another to heal since without his femur to walk, this man was prey to predators: “Helping another person through hardship, that’s where civilization is. »
Don’t we too often forget, as men and as women, to be civilized? To use our reason? Isn’t it sometimes more accommodating to close your eyes?
Spaces aboriginals at Radio-Canada revealed last week that the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse has launched an investigation after a troubling event was brought to its attention. Indeed, an Inuk child who was staying in a Batshaw Youth and Family Center in Montreal was reportedly placed in isolation rather than seek treatment, when he was in great pain.
The story would have taken place last April. The teenager allegedly complained of pain in a testicle. He would then have been given Tylenol as a first step. As the pain worsened, the young man reportedly knocked on his bedroom door during the night for help. Instead of providing him with the necessary care, he would have been handcuffed and transported to the basement, in isolation, since knocking on the doors to get help is probably not allowed, in the eyes of some attendants of this center.
Finally in the morning, after the teenager had repeatedly vomited in pain, he was finally transported to the hospital. He will lose his testicle.
It was an anonymous call from an employee of the Batshaw Center that led to the investigation.
Does this whole situation remind you of another one? I do. An event that took place on September 28, 2020 at the Joliette hospital where a woman named Joyce Echaquan was screaming for us to listen to her and help her.
I’m not saying the boy received the same treatment as Joyce Echaquan. I am not saying either that the context was completely the same, the investigation will show it.
However, I am saying that this is a case that has commonalities, once again involving an Aboriginal person and a Quebec public service. The same cries of pain and despair, the same feeling of being invisible.
Mr. Legault, the one who said he wanted to be the prime minister of all Quebecers, still has his work cut out for him. The situation here, although it takes place in another place and the victim has a different name, is intended to be the same. It pains me to say it, but you have to be disconnected to believe that everything is settled.
Nunavik is grappling with major service deficiencies of all kinds. There is a lack of teachers, foster families, prosecutors, healthcare personnel in particular. Results ? The Inuit and their files are transferred to the South, most often to Montreal. Sometimes they end up on the street, sometimes they get beaten up and die, sometimes they are not listened to. Through all this, there are also, of course, great stories.
But why change lifestyles if it’s to let us down in the end? I often wonder where our sanity and sense of civility lie, at a minimum.
When I miss humanity too much, I think of those who don’t close their eyes. And there are more and more of them.